Consumer Guide: 2001 Gets Better

Ryan Adams got 80 Pazz & Jop mentions, Amy Allison one. So I
investigated in that order. If I hadn't, the Dean's List would have
been one album longer.

AESOP ROCK: Daylight EP (Def Jux)
Less experimental beatwise than his boys, less literate bookwise than
his rep, but, like his namesake, fabulously wise: "When I was 16 I was
taping Bobbito and trying to find out who was newest and was trying to
be the dopest, now I don't care if I'm the dopest." I don't know much
about dope, I just know what I like: his beats, which average out to
deep organ funk; his rhymes, which half-parse no matter how twisted;
and his class consciousness--unlike "Bulletproof Wallets," his "Nickel
Plated Pockets" are stuffed (they wish) with spare change. Title track
gave us the great verse on Labor Days: "Life's not a bitch,
life is a beautiful woman/You only call her a bitch because she won't
let you get that pussy/Maybe she just didn't feel y'all shared similar
interests/Maybe you're just an asshole who couldn't sweet-talk a
princess." Second track makes her a biyutch and concludes: "Maybe
you're just an asshole, and maybe I'm just an asshole." He isn't. He's
dope. A MINUS

AMY ALLISON: Sad Girl (Diesel Only)
Mose's daughter grew up listening to Schoenberg on Long Island and
sings with the piercing twang of a less urbane Victoria Williams. She
writes what seem to be country songs with the same stylized simplicity
her dad favors in blues, but the country part is just aura, a way to
convince you the singer is as unsophisticated as you think her lyrics
are until you think some more. Only the rowdy "Shadow of a Man" and
the cheatin' "Sad State of Affairs" come equipped with Nashville
markers. The rest are just well-turned songs of the heart. Two
illustrate the title all too well, but the best make something of it,
especially "One Thing in Mind," about what every mother tells every
daughter men want, with consequences. A MINUS

ISSA BAGAYOGO: Timbuktu (Six Degrees)
After surfacing as a singer expert on the three-stringed kamalÚ ngoni
droning over a drum machine so spare the naive might call it
primitive, he leaves the settings to Ali Farka Toure sideman Koko
DembÚlÚ and label owner Yves Wernert, who fashion a world music
amalgam slyer and slinkier than any kora fusion. True, there are
moments when the production almost drowns in comforting gestures. But
the groove always rights itself, and the sound effects are obtrusive
enough to give kora fans a salutary case of the jitters. A
MINUS

BJÍRK: Vespertine (Elektra)
I liked this a lot better once I heard how it was entirely about sex,
which since it often buries its pulse took a while. Sex, not
fucking. I'm nervous so you'd better pet me awhile sex. Lick the backs
of my knees sex. OK, where my buttcheeks join my thighs sex. I'm still
a little jumpy so you'd better pet me some more sex. How many
different ways can we open our mouths together sex. We came 20 minutes
ago and have Sunday morning ahead of us sex. Or, if fucking,
tantric--the one where you don't move and let vaginal peristalsis do
the work (yeah sure). The atmospherics, glitch techno, harps,
glockenspiels, and shades of Hilmar Om Hilmarsson float free
sometimes, and when she gets all soprano on your ass you could accuse
her of spirituality. But with somebody this freaky you could get used
to that. English lyrics provided, most of them dirty if you want. A
MINUS

KASEY CHAMBERS: Barricades & Brickwalls (Warner Bros.)
I got into the lizard-slow "Nullarbor Song" only after determining that
Nullarbor is the southern Australian desert, its name Latin for "no
trees"--did wonders for the "river of tears" line. That's the kind of
price you pay for the saving strangeness built into Chambers's
achieved, imagined stylistic commitment. Sure the outback can turn you
into a country singer, especially if your dad is a professional folkie
who's romanticized the natural his whole life (and you're not really a
rebel). Sure the difficulty of the leap can mitigate the folk/country
corn factor, especially if your voice is a wonder of nature (and you
have enough sass in you). But represent your roots honestly, as you're
smart enough to know you must, and sometimes you'll lose the folks you
romanticize. A MINUS

FAUDEL: Ba´da (Mondo Melodia)
Beautiful voices mean less than beautiful records, so no wonder this
second-generation Algerian-Parisian with the tenor in his pants became
a star when his 1997 debut blew up. Cut before he was 20 and just
released here, it's as shameless as Shakira. The rai hooks aren't
always rendered on authentic instruments, which in rai I guess means
electric guitar, but the synth tootles and buzzes feed the
tune-at-all-costs abandon. This is the Faudel they call "the little
prince of rai," throwing all of his toys on the floor at once. The one
they call "the Julio Iglesias of rai" got the next album, which came
out first here. Super salsa, kid, and I know there's only one "N'Sel
Fik." But why not another "version hip hop"? A MINUS

THE HIGHLIFE ALLSTARS: Sankofa (Network import)
At first I thought the four credited acts were a de facto aggregation
dubbed the Highlife Allstars, and metaphorically they are. The music
does change with the billing--vocals are undemonstratively chanted,
conversationally emoted, sweetly sung, and instrumentation swells to
include organ, horns. Yet whether the named artist is a known oldtimer
or one of the small pool of young men who can play the dated style of
Ghana's presoukous preeminence, the mood and sound are consistent,
rooted in the friendly rhythmic intricacies of palm wine guitar. Juju
is too, but the song forms are much clearer here, the commitment to
loveliness more straightforward. Until better examples emerge from
somebody's vinyl horde, this collection will be a world music
template. And N.B.: If the rest of the title seems vaguely familiar,
people like the word, which in Akan seems to mean something like,
"You must look at the past before you can proceed into the future."
Wonder what will happen then. A

JAY-Z: The Blueprint (Roc-A-Fella)
What is it pigs like Jigga say as they spread your legs and accuse you
of wanting their money? Lay back and enjoy it? Assuming you don't
believe this album is great art or reparation for chattel slavery,
that's the way it is with Jay-Z's power pop. His flow is fluent,
sure. But his confidence reigns supreme. Likewise his hooks, whether
purchased, hired, or just what he was feeling at the time, and his
rhymes, whose deepest cleverness is in their apparent
effortlessness. Like Star Wars or Windows 95, he unlocks the
gate to a luxurious passivity that may not be good for you in the long
run but does the trick at the time. A MINUS

LIGHTNING BOLT: Ride the Skies (Load)
Two pieces, bass and drums-vocalist long ago emigrated from Providence
to Brooklyn to lead their Gotham counterpart Black Dice from behind a
trap set. But where Black Dice are an s&m noise band like the
Swans, Lightning Bolt are a fuck-in-the-doorway noise band. They care
about tune, and though they're all-instrumental they're about as
"post"-rock as Slayer, Nine Inch Nails, or Sonny Sharrock. Brian
Gibson's bass sounds like a guitar half the time, especially when he's
stating themes, which tend to be droll, perhaps because they
anticipate the cacophony to come, perhaps because you do. The rare
brains-in-a-puddle-of-yuck-on-the-floor record actually capable of
driving the expressway to your skull. A MINUS

JOEY RAMONE: Don't Worry About Me (Sanctuary)
The nicest Ramone, who was revealing his secret identity well before
he knew he had cancer, stands tall as a gentle goof, sounding
contemplative partly because he's slowed down a little, partly because
music has speeded up a little, and partly because he is. Spareness
bleeds into vagueness, minimalism into unfinished business, which may
be how he would have wanted these songs but isn't necessarily how we
want them. Nevertheless, his ashram seeker is the perfect
counterweight to his financial analyst, "What a Wonderful World" to
"1969." And when he writes from his bed of pain it really hurts. B
PLUS

SPOON: Girls Can Tell (Merge)
A few songs grab you, the rest grow on you, the lyric sheet makes some
sense. Dynamics fill in for groove. But even after you run the hooks
through your head for a day--"Take the fifth," "fitted shirt," "that
you're next to me"--you don't have much idea what Britt Daniel is on
about, except maybe that he wonders why he works so hard on his songs,
and (duh) has yet to find true love. And beyond "Take the fifth," no
phrases stick out as free-floating signifiers, either. In short, the
indie-pop conundrum in a nutshell too slippery to crack--unless you
really like filberts. B PLUS

Dud of the Month

BONNIE RAITT: Silver Lining (Capitol)
If on 1986's Nine Lives, the first bummer of a three-decade
career divided by a cleaning-up period, she was a cynic at the end of
her rope, on the second she's a self-remade woman calling the
shots. As usual, the few songs she wrote herself outstrip the
others. But even those are for roots-rock matures who share her
worldview so narrowly that not a note or emotion takes her anywhere
she doesn't know like her own night table. The exceptions are a single
helping of Malian guitar from Habib Koite and, to an extent, a gospel
rouser by Zimbabwean crossover darling Oliver Mtukudzi. More such
tracks might have forced a stretch. Instead she starts off by warning
the young against "dealing on the street." Somehow I don't think this
is gonna win any war on drugs--or get her on TRL.
B MINUS

Whiskeytown, Pneumonia (Lost Highway): wallowing in
nostalgia as only a 25-year-old can--a 25-year-old with a voice
sweeter than his soul and tunes coming out of his ass ("My Hometown,"
"Jacksonville Skyline," "Paper Moon");

Faudel, Samra (Mondo Melodia): his debut here, his
follow-up there, and shorter on hit-'em-with-your-best-shot as a
result ("Salsa ra´," "Samra");